Twitter is used more by B2B marketing (70%) than B2C marketing  (46%).

Association of National Advertisers (3rd August 2009)

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Really?!  I’d be interested to see who agrees with this.  I would love to have some qualitative research to back up this statement… 

What are they using it for?  Typical B2B style blasts about how great my company is. Or 1-2-1 discussion with key members of their audience.

Do they believe their audience are active tweeters?  Are their customers DMUs actively seeking 140 characters of information to make important B2B decisions. On new suppliers or suppliers to retain.

Do they all have a “communities manager” to actively tweet and monitor tweets? I know that we could not do this.  If they don’t how much time are they devoting to Twitter.  

Do they see ROI from their efforts…?  Or is it purely about customer satisfaction and self promotion?

I for one am shocked at this statistic – is it only me?

Being reactive to Social Media is a mindfield for any B2B organisation.  A recent article in the NYTimes suggests that “sentiment analysis software” is the way forward, with software evolving to become able to monitor the true feeling behind any post.  I’d be interested in seeing this sort of software in action as I don’t believe it’s quite that easy to interpret our use of language.  What about sarcasm for example or inuendo??

For example:  I love brussel sprouts, they are right up there on my list of things I enjoy, straight after jellied eels.

Now will that compute as a happy message as I have used both love and enjoy in the same sentance? With brussel sprout suppliers thinking they’ve achieved another satisfied customer?

On the other hand, software like this can empower B2B marketing teams – at least we would have a short list of mentions with a rough idea of the sentiment.  Its the answer to all those questions about ROI that face any modern day marketer.  They are as John Whelan of StudHub suggests:

“The canary in the coal mine”…  at least.

 

I have to thank Luke Brynley Jones for the inspiration from his recent twitter – cheers!

Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants: The term draws an analogy to a country’s natives, for whom the local religion, language, and folkways are natural and indigenous, over against immigrants to a country who often are expected to adapt and assimilate to their newly adopted home.  Marc Prensky – cited in Wikipedia.

I think the client side B2B view of social marketing is very much in the here and now – largely due to the recession and the need to show immediate ROI.  Therefore,  most organisations end up identifying the digital immigrant as their target audience and excusing their lack of engagement with the audience with the notion that social media is not what their customer wants/needs.

But what about the digital native – hot on the heels of the digital immigrant, natives are only 10-15 younger and thirsty for information.  Over the next few years, these digital natives will begin to start leading the boardroom and to some extent already are. 

Whose to say that making the next 10 years in social media count won’t stand these organisations in good stead to:

A) Be omnipresent when then native reaches the C Suite.

B) Already have cultivated an impression in that audience by being a cutting edge organisation over the past decade.

I believe that a good social media plan should completely address to fundamental differences -

Revenue Generating – what techniques and emerging technologies can we use at the moment that are specifically used by the digital immigrants, that could potential raise the profile of the company – here and now. To lead to some sort of ROI.

Brand Awareness – what techinques and emerging technologies can we look at as an extension of our brand awareness.  Continuing to show that our brand is out there before anyone else. Reaching out to natives in advance.

I’d recommend Marc Prensky’s report on the differences in education – it gives a good insight on what we can look forward to.  You can find it here.

Stumble Upon Logo

Well I can see that we can promote our content through the Computers > IT section by asking our readers to stumbleupon us. We can also use it as a way to gain some valueable market insight as too which materials are most enjoyed by the wider audience.  I am not sure the number of IT managers/ C Levels who use stumbleupon would be excessive, but it can’t hurt to be there – can it??

The point is that many people with an interest in IT are using the service everyday – it can only help to promote our brand WW.

In comparison to delicious I find it easier to use and I like the randomness!  By clicking the stumble upon button in my browser I don’t even have to know what it is I am looking for – I don’t have to think what are my key words  and what key words a sites author would have used.  Things I never knew I wanted are only a few stumbles away!!

Positives of the Passionate Personality:

• More engaging.   Do I think I could find someone like this in my organisation?  Probably but that personal would inevitably already be swamped by their own workload to be able to fully engage, plan and research a blog that will get a good return on resource.
• Ability to convey emotion and a strong p.o.v.   Surely this is worth its weight in gold, I appreciate a strong view point even if I don’t agree with it, as it allows me to form my own opinions.
• Chance to launch our experts.  Personality blogging could help us to ensure that our product experts continue to be viewed as thought leaders, helping up to cement our position in the marketplace.

Concerns about Personality Blogging:

• The Fedex Case: I know many people who would make a similar flippant comment thinking that its a funny thing to add to their blog, but in the B2B world is this really acceptable? As a blogger surely you need to self monitor and ensure that your posts aren’t about to upset or aggravate your target market – destroying everything you set out to do in a second?
• What if we create a monster/celebrity/both?  If we set up one of best members of staff as a blogging corporate celebrity, are we opening them up to headhunters and competitors?  If we give a blogger full company endorsement are we creating a monster who can damage our corporate reputation (as above) in one foul keystroke?
• Tone and message.  How do we ensure that our personalities have the material to engage readers and position themselves as market leaders through their own personal writing.  E.g. If a serious IT guru uses LOL in his opening line – how will that be viewed by our target audience – an IT manager or a CEO? If his spelling, punctuation and grammar aren’t great – is that endearing or does it actually reduce the impact of the message?

Positives for the Corporate Cold Front:

• Anyone can do it – we don’t need to worry about someone leaving the company, people being overloaded by the responsibility, being on holiday etc.
• We can show a united front with key speakers from the company addressing the audience at any one time.
• We can target a varied audience e.g. posts from our MD, posts from our techies, service staff etc.
• We can ”brand police” it until we are blue in the face.

Negatives of the Corporate Cold Front:

• May lead to a disjointed tone and message, does anyone really follow a blog where the author/subject/tone/intended audience changes radically by the day? 
• Does anyone really engage with this?  What is the return on resource?
• We will “brand police” it until we are blue in the face

Its very early days… but at the moment the only way that I feel that I can truly compare is try out both, but with limited resource I will probably pick personality blogging first, but put a limit on the length of the blog e.g. a Six Month deep dive into a specific subject area. To try and get some first hand key learnings on how much response we will get for our input.  Expect more on the subject, as I know this is only the tip of the ice burg. ..

I love the blog ” Secret diary of a bonafide marketing genius” her blog is everything a blog should be witty, entertaining and inspiring. I found her blog through SlideShare, where she has some very entertaining and informative slide decks on Social Media.

I also love Copyblogger – in a recent blog they suggested that a blog is a good way to improve your writing style… so here I am! Please excuse the very basic posts so far! I found thier blog after searching for advice on writing effective copy for Social Media.

So thanks guys…!

CM

 Ves Demov quotes a research study that suggests people who rate as  ”high in openness to new experience (both men and women) and high in neuroticism(women)” are mostly likely to be effective bloggers. 

Ummm - off to find a test that will help me pin point the highly neurotic - open employees at my company who doesn’t mind being a blog guinea pig.  Maybe we should look for these qualities during recruitment! :O)

CM

• Online PR – getting to journalist first and with the latest news. PRblogger details a huge list of UK Journalists actively using Twitter.
• Joining the debate- responding to positive/negative comment that is already out there in the public domain and fighting any fires. Examples include the “Bruno” case mentioned in Buzz study where negative tweeting is thought to be one potential cause for a decline in box office sales.
• Gaining instant customer feedback on company strategy, like Woolworths who use the site to test demand for potential products before sourcing them.
• Raising the profile of campaigns or running specific Twitter offers like Dell (unfortunately for our company running mass offers like this is not viable but we can definitely use Twitter in support of other campaigns).

These are fantastic benefits for a ‘free’ resource but as a marketing manager, heavily defined by my return on investment/resource, how do I go about proving that there is the potential for  true lead generation through this media?

To be continued….

CM 

* I’ve set up an account with Twitterfeed to see if I can make the titles of my blog automatically show on my Twitter page - fingers crossed!

I’ve tried to carry out a quick comparison of their structure – please except my apologies if my speedy observations aren’t completely accurate. 

The main aim: to try and see if there are any obvious trends that will help shape the structure of company blogs that we launch in the future.

Main observations:

• Most are written by a passionate personality rather than an anonymous corporate entity.
• Most are updated once a week – which surprised me as I thought the authors would need to be more active than this to truly engage an audience.
• Those updated more than once a day are published by content creators such as analysts or journalists.
• Most use RSS feeds and tag words – but don’t rely heavily on digital media (like video or pictures) to engage with their audience. This is another surprise, as most seminars that I have attended have lead me to believe that the most successful blogs need to use an abundance of digital media and social networking services in order to thrive and survive.

Are there any gems that I’ve missed out?  Are there any good blogging rules that you live by?

CM

* I’ve  taken the opportunity to use scribd, a great tool for sharing documents online, using tools like this may help establish our bloggers as a thought leaders, but how do we ensure that employees don’t give away too much of  our IP and competitive edge…

So… I’ve started to attend conferences and read/learn as much as possible to start to build up a basic strategy for our company moving forward.  I’ve started this blog at the same time , with the aim of sharing ideas, getting invaluable peer feedback and ultimately to learn first hand the “rules” of blogging.

Please feel free to share any thoughts along the way!

CM